Liberals told us the war was costing over 500 billion per year! Where’s the savings?!! Back in the Bush years, a $500 billion drop in savings would have resulted in a surplus!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Left Blogistani Shaw Kenaw, bless her articulate soul, featured one of those ridiculous articles where a liberal invents some obscure meaningless statistic to “prove” that Obama isn’t a big spender.

Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s. (Nutting)

I accept the data upon which Nutting based his tendentious article, but the data is meaningless. He is measuring annual increases in spending from one year to the next to come up with the meaningless soundbite that spending is rising slower under Obama than it did under any hated Republican president, Reagan and Bush being the most mentioned.

It's a trick

First, he includes Obama’s White House projection for 2013 (which of course projects no spending increase), to bring Obama's average annual spending increase number down. The other sneaky trick is using averages instead of absolute values. Nutting averages the percentage increases, which hides the magnitude of the actual numbers.

An example...

Which is bigger 5% of 50 or 3% of 100? That is where the mathematical mischief lies. For the mathematically challenged, 5% of 50 is 2.5, and 3% of 100 is 3. Likewise, Obama’s smaller percentage increases work on a much bigger number, but dealing in percentages hides the gargantuan magnitude of his spending. In truth, he has spent more than Bush and Reagan combined.

Bush is by no means blameless. He blew $787 billion on the bank bailout, setting Obama a super-high budgeting baseline from which to compare annual spending. Obama didn’t need to dramatically increase spending, he just needed to continue the spending while looking responsible as he points to his modest budget increases (the propaganda Nutting is propagating). An honest president, as opposed to a corrupt Chicago Machine pol, would have reset the baseline to $797 billion less than what Bush spent his last year.

A question I have for the Obamabots is, What did Obama do with the extra $787 billion every year after Bush’s “one time” bailout? Were Obama the paragon of fiscal rectitude, his spending would have went down $787 billion for each subsequent year, since that was a one-time spike. Since Obama is instead a big spending pol, he brazenly pushed through his dramatic spending programs and rewards to cronies with Bush’s stimulus as cover, allowing him to blow almost an extra trillion per year in progressive pet projects while absurdly claiming he has not increased spending.

The Official Government Numbers Damn Obama's Record

Nutting does do us one favor: He links to official government data. I recommend you go through it yourself instead of letting partisan screwballs filter it for you.

I particularly recommend to you table 1.3, where you will see how Obama's deficits dwarf those of Reagan and Bush.

Table 2.3 is also useful. In it you will see that even with their hated tax cuts, Reagan and Bush collected more revenue as a percentage of GDP than Obama.

How did they do it? They grew the economy, expanded it, instead of choking the life out of it as Obama is doing. Look at table 10.1 and you will see that Reagan doubled the size of our economy, Clinton and Bush each expanded it by almost another 50%, with Clinton having the slightly better record on GDP growth and clearly the winner on reducing annual deficits.

By Obama's own laughably Pollyannish projections, if he were to be reelected, he would barely add a third to our economy.

The record is Clear. Obama has been a horrible president, shriveling the economy and ballooning the national debt, while unemployment remains high and government grows. It's not an opinion, it's a fact.

Our $14.7 trillion of GDP only yields about $2.2 trillion in revenue for the Treasury. To fully access that entire GDP, the government would have to raise all tax brackets to 100% without producing any reduction in output or decrease in revenue.

Our publicly traded debt is now 422% of our annual tax revenue.

The low debt service ratio which has masked our economy's underlying insolvency

While what Ducky says is technically true regarding publically traded debt, debt service in 2006 was 240B on 4.9T and today stands at 213B on 9.3T, the average maturity on our debt has declined to 5.5 years. Compare that to the UK at 14 years or Greece's 8 years.

Falling interest rates and reduced durations have merely given the illusion of solvency to the US.

The White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

Under the Obama budget, interest would top 18% of revenue in 2018 and 20% in 2020, CBO projects.

But under more adverse scenarios than the CBO considered, including higher interest rates, Moody's projects that debt service could hit 22.4% of revenue by 2013.

Moody's describes how the key metric to watch is interest payments as a % of tax revenue. A future downgrade would increase the yields required by investors from U.S. debt, thus a downgrade would likely make this key metric look worse, increasing the risk for further downgrades and so forth, in a similar fashion to what we have been watching in Europe. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-05-10/markets/29997834_1_cbo-downgrade-moody#ixzz1vtl6USVY

Thomas Jefferson went into a bit more detail, but said essentially the same thing:

1. "If we can prevent government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy."

2. "I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest danger to be feared."

3. "When we consider that this government is charged with the external and mutual relations of these states; that the states themselves have principle care of our persons, our property and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and officers have not multiplied unnecessarily, and sometimes injuriously, to the service they were meant to promote."

Hundreds of thousands -- nay hundreds of millions -- of words, artistically ginned up graphs, pie charts, and reams upon reams of manipulated statistics keep trying to disprove, defy or circumvent the ineluctable logic of the Founders -- always without success.

The cliche runs true throughout history:

''The lesson we learn from history is that we learn NOTHING from History."

Liberalism is all about the forceful assertion that "fire will not burn you and water will not make you wet" -- something even a mentally retarded individual ought to be able realize -- but still the effort to deny and defy logic persists and persists.

Things would be so much better, if only they weren't the way they are!

Good try, Finntann. "Moody's describes how the key metric to watch is interest payments as a % of tax revenue."

No let's review, how did we get into this deficit:

1. Tax cuts - most during the Bush administration and they only created larger equity bubbles.

2. Honest accounting of Iraq.Afghanistan - We can thank Both Chucklenuts and The Black Bus for those fiascoes but Obummer was honest enough to put it on the books and not deal with it through supplementals.

3. The recession - You probably back further tax cuts to get things growing again. Well it has helped a bit with the properly targeted payroll tax reduction but this craziness will continue.

4. The stimulus - The smallest component and most of it went to banks and local government. Kept the cops with their hands in the till for a little while longer but now it's time to face facts.

Can we deal with any of those? Easily and that would greatly reduce our debt service. However, Baggers like AOW would rather see her husband's health benefits cut than stop killing the nasty Muslims who are going to take away her bacon.

So Obama really hasn't increased spending much and if we take some prudent steps we can resolve this. However, we will continue to listen to the Calvinist morons and give further tax breaks to corporations and the uber wealthy because the GIVE you jobs. So much for Marxism.

But I am a perverse person who wants to see you right wingers get what you ask for. It's the only way you'll learn.

“We have to start living within our means,” Lew said yesterday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

Still, about $4.5 trillion, or 63 percent of the $7.2 trillion in public Treasury coupon debt, needs to be refinanced by 2016. That gives the government a narrowing window as growing interest expense will curtail its ability to spend.

“There is roll-over risk,” said James Caron, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York, one of 20 primary dealers that trade with the Fed. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

The amount of marketable U.S. government debt outstanding has risen to $8.96 trillion from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008, according to the Treasury Department. Debt-service costs will climb to 82 percent of the $757 billion shortfall projected for 2016 from about 12 percent in last year’s deficit, according to the budget projections.

That compares with 69 percent for Portugal, whose bonds have plummeted on speculation it may need to be bailed out by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Silver, Reagan did not inherit the same problems Obama did - thanks to selfish, short-sighted, dopey conservative voters.

It was a lot easier to recover from the economic problems of the late-70's/early-80's back when we didn't have Free Trade, unfunded wars, ridiculous wealth disparity, while then we did have a massive and heavily unionized manufacturing sector, much greater domestic investment, etc.

We were a different country 32 years ago.

Of course, thanks again to the selfish, short-sighted, dopey conservative voters, we got Reagan, a sleazy scumbag who was a pivotal player in creating the problems we have today.

Meanwhile, you have the unmitigated sleazy gall to complain that Obama's RECOVERY isn't up to snuff for you. Well, genius, you selfish- short-sighted dopey conservative voters MADE THE FUCKIN' MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Ducky: Your numbered list is BS. #1 is an opinion, unless you can show us that revenue went down after the Bush tax cuts.

#2 is a red herring, although like you I detest government trickery. Even "off budget" expenditures get figured into government deficit and debt numbers, so this is nothing but pro-Obama red propaganda on your part.

@ Jersey Girl: Meanwhile, you have the unmitigated sleazy gall to complain that Obama's RECOVERY isn't up to snuff for you. Well, genius, you selfish- short-sighted dopey conservative voters MADE THE FUCKIN' MESS IN THE FIRST

Alright, jackass. I've been polite to you but not anymore. You are stupid, because you open your mouth without examining the facts.

We had no mess until the Wall Street and US Government-sponsored mortgage fiasco blew up. Economies have ups and downs, but this mess was created by the progressives of all parties.

You are the ideal Obama voter: Naive and unthinking. Now go stick your head back in your ass, Obama needs the support.

If you want to blame government for the mortgage melt down then you have to admit it was due to the removal or regulations.

Nope...it was from the CREATION of new regulations which mandated FANNIT FREEDIE make higher loans with less collatoral to financial deadbeats. Also from new regulations that allowed them to bundle and collatoralize millions of mortgages previously held by banks as investment grade securities.

In other words, duckmeister, stop trying to blame the failures of GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES on a "lack of regulation". They were all BORN from regulations and their entire lives DIRECTED by said government regulations.

In case you don't think that THESE are some examples of "regulations"...

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.[4][5]The Act instructs the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation (Section 802.) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions (Section 804.)

"What, 15% of you loans AREN't going to blacks and millions of undocumented illegals? You need to REACH OUT to these communities and give them "no Doc" subprime loans, or we won't allow your bank to merge or expand!"

The Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (or FHEFSSA, Pub.L. 102-550, title XIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, H.R. 5334, Oct. 28, 1992, 106 Stat. 3941, 12 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq.). The Act established the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) within the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It also mandated that HUD set specific goals for the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with regard to low income and underserved housing areas.[1][2] Wikisource has original text related to this article:Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992

Here is where you prove yourself wrong. You conservatives all want to go back to the Gold Standard and all that, but Reagan did nothing of the sort. He "resolved" the inflation problem by balancing it against employment, and THAT has been a disaster for all but the very wealthy for a 30 years now.

Reagan inherited Inflation, high unemployment and a recession, a bad combo, since according to the Krugman Keynesians, inflation is supposed to get you out of such situations.

Volker did the brave thing of tightening money to get inflation and interest rates down. It took over two years, and the GOP lost seats in the mid-term because people were not happy.

Once inflation and interest rates were down, they were able to tackle the recession and the rest is history: The greatest economic boom in the nation's history.

Thersites is so right. Only to brain-dead liberal could doubling GDP and unprecedented job creation be a bad think.

Jersey, you're not a dumb man. I think you should start questioning the leftist dogma they've been feeding you. Your anger stems from the cognitive dissonance and your inability to counter the facts I present to you.

Ducky would make an outstanding progressive member of the Congress. He wants to review how we ended up with our deficit. Then he lists all of the talking points approved by Think Progress. Noticeably absent is “excessive spending.”

Conservatives well understand how the pigs never want to leave the teat; it’s a tough world out there, and it is so comforting to know Uncle Sugar stands ready to unload untold millions of other people’s money to placate the lazy, the stupid, and/or the corrupt. But that doesn’t describe America. If government spending isn’t married to a specific constitutional authority, then that spending —however much it is, is an illegal disbursement. If spending is unconstitutional, then it is by definition, illegal, un-American, and unacceptable.

Will anyone on the left seriously consider what this means for America’s long-term growth? Of course not: pigs don’t understand much of anything.

Yeah, Mustang may 'leave the teat' only to bend over to the corporatist who are buying our democracy. They get you to hate the poor and average Americans and champion the plundering the uber wealthy are doing to this country. Amazing.

The Founding Fathers and those who fought in the Continental Army were our original Western Heroes, guided by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and following in the footsteps of great warriors like Jan Sobieski and Charles Martel.